Unplanned
by pjjammjamm
Summary: This fic is loosely based off krtshadow's Redemption. Harry's been put in Azkaban. Sirius decides to break him out, Marauder-style, and drags poor Remus along for the ride. AU starting after 4th year in the Potterverse.
1. Breaking In

**IMPORTANT AN: So, this is how this story works. Once upon a time, about 7 years ago, I stumbled on a fanfic that was well-written, interesting, and in my opinion, a believable representation of a Harry-goes-to-jail story. I've never read anything like it since, and likely will never be fortunate enough to find another such fic again. This story is "Redemption," written by krtshadow. I really recommend reading it. Regardless, in the second chapter, krtshadow mentioned an idea in which Sirius refuses to believe that his godson could do anything terrible enough to wind up in Azkaban, and decides to break him out, with Remus trailing at his heels trying to get Sirius to come up with a plan. This little ficlet was born of it. If you can, though, read Redemption for a truly well-written, exciting, interesting, and honestly amusing Harry-in-Azkaban story. **

**Disclaimer: If I had owned Sirius, or Remus, they would have never been allowed to leave Grimmauld Place in the fifth book. In fact, they'd never be allowed to leave where I put them at all, for fear of losing them. But alas, no such luck. I don't even own the idea for this fic- krtshadow does. So really, I own jack. **

"My Godson is WHERE?" Remus winced and flinched backwards as his best friend (the only one still living and on their side of the war, anyways) threw a chair at the wall, his dark, brooding, deep-set eyes furious.

Once upon a time, the idea of Sirius being frightening in any way had seemed laughable. The oldest Black child was so unlike his family, so unlike his own last name itself, that people often had believed him when he claimed he was "unrelated" to his mad cousins and brother.

Since then, his cheekbones had become more sharp, his face more gaunt, twisted with pain and sorrow and anger and, (though Remus denied it to anyone who verbally asked) just a small hint of the madness that should have resulted from his stay in the wizarding prison for 12 years.

The same wizarding prison his godson had just been thrown in.

Outside the door, he all but heard the rest of the Order wince as well in reaction.

"What do you mean, they've thrown him in Azkaban? They can't possibly have any evidence tying Harry to anything! If he'd so much as cast a cleaning charm he'd have been expelled from Hogwarts—he'd never cast a dark curse in broad daylight at the risk of being seen by muggles and wizards alike! He's not that stupid!"

"I know you feel that way, Sirius," Remus stated calmly, holding his hands up in the hopes of pacifying his old friend. The soothing gesture seemed to do very little good. "I'm sure this is something that we still need to work out. But Dumbledore hasn't fully gotten to the bottom of it yet, and…" Remus paused, trying to think of the gentlest way to tell Sirius exactly how the Headmaster viewed the matter.

He needent have bothered. His silence told Sirius everything he needed to know. "So he BELIEVES it?" He hissed instead, ready to go find the Headmaster of Hogwarts and shake him until the old fool understood. "It's ridiculous! And what about Harry's friends?"

Remus hesitated, torn between wanting to calm down his friend and needing to be honest. "Well, they're not so sure either."

Sirius just stared at him, shocked beyond words. Stunned, he watched as Remus picked up the chair that Sirius had just thrown towards the innocent, now-damaged, wall just moments ago. At Remus's gesture, he sank down into the chair.

"They have evidence, Sirius, and it's pretty blatant evidence. They have the wand, the bodies… Merlin, they even have a confession! Even Dumbledore can't argue with that… and Ron and Hermione, while they may have been his friends for a while now…well, they're also still just children. You have to understand what it's got to be like for them, trying to decide if—"

But Sirius cut Remus off, a horrified look stretching slowly across his gaunt face as he listened to the former professor talk. "Do YOU believe them?"

Remus stepped back a little and really thought about it, reviewing everything that he, the Headmaster, and several other members of the Order had discussed for several hours previous. If Sirius heard some of that information, the confession and the number of victims, it would absolutely break his faith.

But then, hadn't he thought that of Sirius too. Hadn't he thought Sirius guilty of murdering three of their best friends, regardless of how well he'd thought he'd known Sirius? Hadn't the evidence seemed condemning for Sirius as well?

Yes, it seemed unlikely that another innocent could be thrown in Azkaban with so much fabricated evidence. But hadn't it seemed unlikely the first time?

"I'm not sure yet, Sirius." He responded quietly, suddenly doubting himself and his conviction that Harry had committed the crimes he was accused of. He thought of the boy with the large green eyes and the mess hair, so similar to James and yet so different, and felt that seed of doubt that Sirius had planted begin to grow. He jumped when, after several moments of silence, Sirius drew him out of his musing by shouting.

"Are you lot going to shove off for a while, or what?" Sirius hollered at the door, scowling at the shuffling he heard on the other side as people excused themselves and stopped listening to the conversation.

There was no way he was going to break Harry out if Dumbledore knew about it, after all. Aware that there were ways of putting ears anywhere in Grimmauld Place, (courtesy of those fascinating Weasley twins and their ingenious inventions) he thought long and hard about how to phrase his next sentence before slowly allowing a grin to spread across his face. "Remus, I'd like to play quidditch again soon," He told his old friend slowly, watching with satisfaction as confusion and then exasperation spread across Remus' face.

The sentence had clearly registered, as well as the deeper meaning behind it. Years and years ago, back when they had been young and innocent and naive, "playing quidditch" when Sirius or James was in detention had meant doing everything possible to sneak the Marauder in question out of detention.

Now, the situation may have been slightly different, admittedly. This was not a classroom, but a prison. This was not Filch, but instead dementors. Perhaps most importantly, this was not James, but instead Harry.

Still, the basics behind the idea were similar. Break in, find Harry, sneak Harry out.

Remus ran a hand down his face. "Sirius…"

Sirius held up a hand, glancing around in a way that made it obvious that he thought the wall had ears. "Shut up, Remus," He hissed as quietly as possible.

Remus took the hint and improvised. "Sometime soon, Sirius. The war will be over sometime soon, and when we clear your name, you'll be good to go outside again."

For a moment, Sirius stopped to consider just how badly he would truly love to play quidditch—to be able to go outside again, without constantly looking over his shoulder. If anyone else had said that they wanted to play quidditch again sometime soon in reaction to hearing the news Sirius had just received, the change in topic would have been seen as odd. Sirius, however, was known both for being random and for being slightly insane. As such, he felt he could get away with it.

He tried to figure out how best to broach the topic with Remus, before deciding to say, "Yeah, soon. I'm going to bed, okay?" As he said it, he shot Remus a look that made it clear he was soon to follow and headed up to his room.

Remus knew what was going to happen. He'd known it, truthfully, before he'd even told Sirius the news of Harry's arrest. Sighing, he nodded and watched Sirius head up to bed, aware that his friend would likely be gone from the room within the hour, and he would need to hurry if he wanted to catch up.

He had to admit it was unlikely that Harry, a fifteen year old wizard with a completely pure soul would be able to pull off such a dark and powerful spell, regardless of the extremely large amount of convincing evidence that said otherwise.

He also firmly suspected that even if Harry had done it, Sirius would still have broken his godson out.

And then, worst of all, Remus began to get excited in spite of himself. It was just like the old days—Sirius jumping into trouble head-first, and Remus rushing to hold him back and talk him into thinking things through first.

Sure enough, by the time Remus headed up to his own room forty minutes later, Sirius was outside the window. "Come on, Mooney, let's go," He hissed the moment Remus entered the room. Remus noted the packed bags hanging over Sirius's shoulder and sighed.

"Sirius, what're the bags for?"

"We're going to need some clothes and stuff, at least until we can get to wherever we end up, and we're hardly likely to be welcomed back here after we break him out." Sirius suddenly seemed to realize what he'd said, and who might have heard, and instantly his eyes widened. Panicked, he hissed, "Now, Remus!"

"Sirius, I think—"

But, much like in the Marauder's heyday years prior, whatever Remus thought didn't really matter. Moments later, they were standing on the banks of a craggy, rocky beach, the wind from the ocean whipping salt into their hair. Silence stretched between the two Marauders for a moment, broken only by the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, before Sirius spoke.

"This is where I ended up after swimming," Sirius explained, staring almost blankly around him as Remus tried to orient himself with where they were. "It was one of the clearest moments of my life, stepping out of that freezing cold water and onto solid land that wasn't a prison for the first time in 12 years."

Any protest Remus was about to make about leaving to rescue Harry left his lips. He couldn't do it, seeing the lost look on his best friend's face. Besides, he'd already let his friend down once, and let James down in the end. The least he could do, the least they could do, was do all that they could to protect James's son.

Still, this would call for some extreme delicacy.

"Sirius," Remus called gently, waiting for his friend to come back to himself. When the haunted look had yet to leave Sirius's eyes, Remus tried again. "Sirius, I understand, I really do." Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but Remus beat him to it. "No, I really do. I empathize, even if I can't possibly sympathize. But we need a plan."

"No, all the planning went into how to get here without the Order finding out," Sirius argued, exasperated. "What you were doing waiting so long to come upstairs, I'll never understand. I've been as patient as possible, Remus. My patience is all used up. Let's go—we'll plan on the way."

Remus sighed, exasperated. "Sirius, we don't even know what direction to travel in. What magic to use to get there. What magic to use to get in." Sirius just ignored him, continuing forward to climb down the rocks, scrambling on a few loose stones and nearly sliding all the way down. "Sirius!"

"Trust me, Moony, breaking _in_ won't be the hard part. Plenty of people have broken out before." Remus merely raised an eyebrow, and then chose to ignore the fact that other than Sirius, (and, apparently, as was discovered a few weeks prior, Barty Crouch Jr.) no one had ever successfully broken out of Azkaban. Sirius, unaware of Remus' thoughts, continued. "I think we're the first people, though, who've ever bothered really breaking in."

Remus blinked, unable to really argue with that logic. Well, what could he really say after that? It was a rare day indeed, when Sirius managed to out-logic Remus, and Remus was too stupefied to really come up with a proper response, so instead, he silently followed Sirius to the water's edge, pausing only to transfigure a boat from some driftwood nearby when Sirius seemed ready to simply dive into the frigid waters as a dog.

It was just like old times indeed. Remus was demanding a plan, and Sirius was completely and utterly ignoring him in favor of stubbornly pursuing his goal, and in the end, they'd be flying by the seat of their pants the majority of the time, and catching every lucky break possible the other half of the time.

Strangely enough, Remus couldn't really bring himself to feel all that upset about it.

**Review please! Next time: Breaking in requires breaking out. But how will Harry be when the find him? And what becomes the plan for getting him out of the prison?**


	2. Breaking Out

Breaking in, although quite possibly the stupidest and most irresponsible thing Remus had ever done in his life, (the exception being, perhaps, every single full moon at Hogwarts that he had allowed his three best friends to romp about on the school grounds with him transformed as a fully-grown werewolf) was not all that difficult.

Until he saw Harry, Remus continued to seriously doubt the intelligence of his actions. Firstly, there was the fact that all that overwhelming proof had even Dumbledore convinced. Secondly, there was little to no evidence, other than his best friend's gut-feeling, that Harry Potter was innocent. Thirdly, if they did manage to escape, they would have at the very least three groups potentially chasing after them: the Order, the Ministry, and Voldemort. None of these possibilities sounded remotely appealing to Remus, who, while not a coward, was quite fond of plans and a quiet life, neither of which appeared possible after that night.

Then he saw Harry, and any doubts Remus had quietly slipped through the nearest barred window.

Though it had been merely a few days, the boy's face was already ragged with pain, dirt, lines, and thin red marks that appeared to be self-inflicted over his eyes, likely the result of repeated visits from the dementors coming to torment him, and force to him see the worst moments of his life replayed again and again. Then Remus remembered exactly which moment of his life Harry heard when the dementors approached, and wondered if any actions on the boys part could merit deserving such treatment.

Worst of all was Harry's eyes. When the boy looked up at them, the green of Lily's emerald orbs was dead, completely void of emotion and thought. Instantly, Remus took every doubt back.

"Harry?" Sirius asked hesitantly, his voice both hushed and hurried. Although he knew the dementors timing by heart, could tell even after years away how far away they were simply by how they affected him, he had no desire to risk sticking around any longer than necessary.

"Sirius?" The boy's eyes flashed in recognition, and a moment later shone with what almost amounted to joy. "You came?"

"Of all the stupid questions…" Sirius muttered, clearly in a rush. "Lets get out of here."

"What took you so long?" Harry hissed at him, his thin face stretching into an expression that resembled a smile.

"That would depend on how long it's been, and how long Mooney here's been keeping information from me," Sirius replied cheerfully, clearly considering his options as he spoke. Remus winced in guilt, but decided that apologies for doubting the boy's innocence could wait until later. Right then, the most important thing was to come up with a plan before Sirius did something stupid.

As Sirius raised his wand to open the cell door, however, it was Harry who held up a hand. "Stop!" He croaked, staring in confusion. "Wont they know it's you?"

"Well, seeing as we're now no longer in the headquarters of the Order and I'm already a wanted fugitive with very few places I could wish to go, they'll likely draw that conclusion anyways," Sirius replied sardonically, raising his wand again, only to stop when Harry shook his head.

"Not the—the what? Order? Whatever. I meant the ministry. They'll know that it's your magic—I wouldn't be surprised if they could pin it down to exactly when you broke me out, either." Harry mused, growing paler as the dementors approached.

"Well, seeing as they already know that I've broken out once, it shouldn't surprise them that I can help someone else do it aga—" There was a faintly proud note to Sirius' voice as he discussed his breakout, and therefore Remus became vaguely amused when Harry held his hand up higher to further stop Sirius.

"Stop bragging, I'm thinking." The boy murmured, licking his badly-chapped lips quickly before taking a deep breath and continuing. "I have a better idea. Did you happen to find my dad's old cloak in my things and bring it with you?"

"Yes, it's here in the bag," Sirius responded quickly, aware of the dementors approaching. "Why?"

"They've come to check on me, the human guards, I mean, once in a while," Harry responded, still somewhat in thought. "I think it's because I'm new, or because I'm famous, or just because someone's paying them to make sure I stay locked up especially. Regardless, they'll be by very soon—they only come the third time the dementors do after I sleep, and I think that's going to be soon anyways." Remus briefly shuddered at the fact that he was, likely, the most sane person among the three of them, being the only person not locked up with dementors on a day-to-day basis for several hours on end, and then listened as Harry continued. "Hand me the cloak, and go outside. I'll meet you out there."

"How will you find us?" Remus asked, impressed in spite of himself by Harry's well-thought out plan.

"Sirius—you have a wand that's not registered under you, correct?" He asked, his voice catching as the cold in the air began to cause goosebumps on his flesh. Sirius nodded, shifting his weight uncomfortably as the dementors came ever closer. "Good. Hand it over. I'll meet you guys outside somewhere. Now go!"

"But why can't I just do magic with the wand, if you're about to?" Sirius asked, digging his feet in as Remus approached to pull him away. Seeing as the question was also nagging at Remus, Remus stopped.

But Harry's answer was logical enough to get him pulling again. "Because I'm not going to leave any traces of magic on anything. I'm just going to use the "Point Me" charm- nothing more."

Well, again, for the second time that night, someone had used logic against Remus, and Remus had to obey simply for lack of other, more logical responses. Although Sirius was clearly against this idea, and struggled slightly with his werewolf friend, he eventually caved at both his godson's pleading and the overwhelming effects of the dementors.

As the two remaining original Marauders left, Harry thought swiftly and on his feet. He had become rather adapt at this through the years of challenges that had been thrown his way, so much so that thinking under pressure almost worked better for him than thinking without any demand on his did. Hearing footsteps echo down Azkaban's dank halls, Harry pulled his father's cloak tightly over him and curled up in a corner, careful to disturb the dirt as little as possible.

The only close call was the quiet, nearly silent snort he let out as the guard scrambled away from the door, a horrified look stretched across his face. The guard scrambled away to try and alert someone else, and as a result, left the door to Harry's cell wide open.

Had Voldemort, who was likely the person responsible for paying the guard, bothered to get a house elf to check for him, or even had merely trusted that the dementors would be aware of his presence, (because after all, an invisibility cloak cannot hide the presence of a soul,) Harry likely would have never gotten out without blasting the door down.

Now, all he had to do was push open the door, trod carefully to avoid drawing attention to himself, and walk carefully to freedom.

Yes, plans are unnecessary when one is able to think on one's feet. And of every wizard and witch alive in the wizarding world, Harry Potter was perhaps the best at thinking on his feet.

As was proven, when Remus asked him, much later, after he'd landed on shore, "So how far in advance did you plan that possible method of escape? Assuming we'd come to rescue you, I mean."

And Harry responded, in a truly puzzled voice, "Plan? No, that wasn't planned. Honestly, I only just thought of it."

Sirius merely grinned at him, and Harry just became more confused when Remus groaned. Poor Remus had just realized that he would likely never teach Harry to plan ahead, not when Harry's godfather so often did otherwise, and especially not when not-planning ahead actually worked out so well in Harry's favor.

Ah, well, it was still worth the effort, Remus decided. After all, there was always the Order and the Ministry and the Death Eaters to avoid, as well as Voldemort to destroy. Surely planning would be required for something as monumental as that, right?


	3. Zoning In

**I decided, to keep with krtshadow's universe, that the idea of the haltia should be used as well in my story. Instead of Harry being alone while Voldemort was calling it, however, he has Remus and Sirius with him. I know I've skipped a few years here, but this will not be a long fic. The purpose of it is to keep up with my writing while I'm experiencing the block I am experiencing in terms of my other stories, and to encourage people to read "Redemption" by krtshadow, of course. **

**Oh, and for the purpose of my story, Remus had done extra research in the recent years of them running from Voldemort, since he is not working for the Order and has extra time, and is thus aware of what a "haltia" is. **

**Disclaimer- I don't own Harry, Sirius, or Remus. That's all JK's. I don't even really own the idea for this fanfiction. That's all krtshadow's. I just own a large, ugly green suitcase that I'm currently attempting to pack for Europe, a beat-up red VW Beetle, and a large closet of clothes people got me for Christmas that I don't really want to wear. Why do I feel like I got the raw end of the deal? =p**

"A what?" Sirius asked, fully aware from the look on both his godson and remaining best friend's face that whatever it was very likely meant bad news.

"A haltia. A presence from another universe," Remus answered quickly, his eyes still widened in horror. Harry's eyes, meanwhile, had already glazed over, wide and large and especially green in his pale white face.

Sirius didn't really understand how this was cause for panic. "Okay, so it's another being from some other place. Why's it so important that he's kept low for the past two years to bring it here?" Sirius asked, confused.

Remus truly felt too horrified to deal with Sirius' stupidity at that moment. Both of the remaining Marauders had been training with Harry for years, ending up for the moment in the tiny house that Sirius had inherited from his parents after his mother's death. They had been preparing in the hopes that Harry could be ready when the time came to step up and deal with the prophecy. While they had been aware that Voldemort must have been up to something serious to merit silence for such a long period of time, they were for the most part kept out of Voldemort's doings because they were no longer connected to the Order.

While Remus was no longer a fan of Dumbledore's, he had to hope that the older wizard was aware of what the newest dark lord was up to, and would intervene in time to stop it.

From the look on Harry's face, though, that wasn't happening.

Still, Sirius was staring at him expectantly, making him feel uncomfortable, and Remus felt obligated to answer. Through his horror, he organized all that he knew about haltia in his head, and came to the inescapable conclusion that if all he thought he knew about haltia were true, the light side of the war may have to give up. "The haltia won't want to be here- it'll immediately start looking for a way out, from the moment it's brought here. They've been known to destroy entire cities in their need to escape."

"But… but Voldemort wouldn't risk himself to rid the world of muggles," Sirius said. "It would defeat the whole purpose of trying to live for forever, which is pretty much all he's been trying to do for…" Sirius tried to remember exactly what year Voldemort had gotten started and then decided dates didn't really matter. "For as long as he's been going. Why would he risk himself now?"

"He wouldn't be risking himself if his first wish was protection," Remus answered, remembering the case in which one wizard had attempted to bring a haltia to their realm. The wizard hadn't been powerful enough to merit three answers, and the explosion had been put down to some kind of accident during some sort of ritual, because no one could prove that the wizard had been attempting to summon a haltia.

"You get three wishes, Sirius, before the haltia can go back," Remus explained, pausing to cast a cooling charm on Harry's scar, hoping to help with the irritated redness of the skin surrounding it. "If he spent his first wish on eternal life, he could wish for whatever he wanted for the second two."

"And all he has to do is call this thing to get the three wishes?" Sirius asked, clenching his teeth together. It seemed awfully unfair that they could lose everything based off of one ritual.

"Well, no, there's a whole blood ritual thing, and a lot of spells involved, but he's had two years to prepare for it," Remus replied, frowning as Harry's eyes widened even more. "Harry, can you hear me? It's going to be okay. We're going to figure something out, all right?"

Harry's eyes just grew wider. Remus grew increasingly concerned, as did Sirius. "Harry?" Sirius called, his worry increasing even more. "It's going to be fine. We're going to work this all out no problem. It's just a little setback."

Remus shot Sirius a look, aware that this was a lot more than one little setback, but unwilling to risk upsetting Harry further. He'd explain the seriousness of the situation to his friend later. "Harry, we need to know what's happening," He said, feeling guilty for even asking that of he boy laying on the floor. He didn't want to upset Harry further, but Harry's visions were the only connection to Voldemort that the three had. While they had been attempting to help Harry block the visions, and had been recently having a great deal of success, any information was important.

"He's decided to go through with calling the… the…"

"Haltia," Remus prompted, knowing that Harry was currently too out of it to really focus on the word itself, or to fully understand it's meaning.

"Yes, that. He knows I'm still out there, but he thinks he can eliminate me through that. He's also hoping to use it to gain Hogwarts, though how, I don't know," Harry continued, gasping for breath. "He wanted to wait longer, but we haven't done anything other than avoid his Death Eaters for the past three years, so he doesn't think it's as much of a risk. He's doing some kind of chanting now…" Harry's green eyes appeared even more anguished, flashing with sadness before they closed.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, gripping his godson's hand. Harry, while technically an adult, had grown incredibly close to the last friends of his fathers since they had broken him out of Azkaban three years prior, and was no longer afraid to express pain or any other emotion in front of them. This time, he expressed extreme sadness and fear.

"It doesn't want to be here," Harry informed them, his voice cracking slightly.

"The haltia?" Remus asked, looking for confirmation. Harry wheezed for more breath and then nodded slightly, swallowing.

"I don't blame it," Sirius said lightly, hoping to maybe lift his godson's hopes a little. "I wouldn't like being dragged to some other world to take care of it's problems very much myself."

Suddenly Harry tensed, his body strung with tension. "NO!" He screamed, his eyes nearly falling out of his head. Both men around him jumped about a foot back, surprised by the sudden, energetic outburst. "No, I didn't bring you here! I wouldn't do that! I couldn't do that—see, I'm not even technically there myself!" Harry explained, his voice still horrified.

Remus' mouth dropped open in shock. "It saw him first," He murmured, torn between panic that something could happen to Harry and hope that maybe this event could be a blessing in an extremely good disguise.

"So?" Sirius asked, watching as his godson appeared to become slightly more calm on the floor. "What does that matter? Harry's not even really there, so it can't do anything to him, can it?" Suddenly, he feared that Harry's increasing calm was not a good sign, as he had taken it to be, but a bad sign of things to come.

"It—the haltia—it must not realize that he's not really there," Remus muttered, watching Harry's face for any sign of change. "It latches onto the first person it sees to grant the three wishes to, and the first person it saw must have been him, or it wouldn't have accused him of bringing it here."

To Sirius, this was a massive jump in logic, but he supposed that Remus had been doing enough research, in the last several years of attempting to find ways to keep Harry alive through the war, that Remus would be aware of things he was not. Sirius tried to piece all that he had heard together to understand it. "So this could be a good thing?" He asked, hardly daring to hope.

Harry blinked rapidly, his expression calming even further. "Yes, Sirius, it could be a great thing," Harry stated, his voice becoming even again. "But it needs the wishes now, so it can go back home. What should we ask for?"

Remus' eyes widened, suddenly seeing where this could easily head, and not liking it one bit. When Harry felt hurried, he often acted just as he had that day they had broken him out of Azkaban, and thought on his feet. While that had worked out marvelously well for Harry that one night years before, it might not work out so well this time, especially because Harry was playing with an incredibly dangerous and powerful being that was likely very angry at being dragging into their world. Remus tried to keep his voice calm, hoping to appeal to Harry's more logical side. "Harry, maybe we should talk this over a little bit. You know, to really figure out what would be best to ask for and to plan on how to use the gifts to end the war."

Harry blinked. "Remus, it wants to go home now, and I can't, in good faith, make it wait for us to form a huge plan and make a million decisions," Harry argued, his voice becoming more firm as he continued. "I want protection for everyone who deserves it, against the man who brought you here." Harry said, and Remus covered his eyes as he realized that Harry was no longer speaking to them, but was instead addressing the haltia. "And by those who deserve it, I mean those who would harm only out of necessity, and not out of desire," Harry continued, licking his dry lips before he continued.

Remus and Sirius just watched the Boy-Who-Lived negotiate with the being from the other world, unable to do much else. "I want the power and knowledge necessary to defeat the one who brought you here, to remove him from this and every world, so he can't hurt another person again," Harry continued, his voice even.

Well, that was fairly simple, as far as wishes went, Sirius thought. There was one wish left, Sirius knew, and for a moment, he fantasized about all the incredible things his godson could wish for; freedom, or eternal life, or the dead to be made living. The silence in the room thickened, until finally Sirius asked, "Harry? What about wish number three?"

Harry swallowed, and remembered the anger, the absolute fury, that the haltia had demonstrated upon being brought to their realm. Then, he vaguely remembered Remus' story about entire cities being leveled by the very kind of being he was conversing with. Protection against Voldemort would hardly do anyone any good if the haltia decided to destroy them all. "I want you to go back to your world without causing any damage or harm to anyone in my world. I know you are angry, but trust me to take care of destroying the man who brought you here, so that no one else gets hurt in the process of you destroying him," Harry said, hoping against hope that he'd worded his request correctly, in a way that wouldn't offend the haltia.

Remus and Sirius both watched as Harry's the red irritation surrounding Harry's scar began to recede, and the glassy-eyed expression that Harry always got on his face when zoning in to Voldemort's doings disappeared.

"Are… are you okay, Harry?" Sirius asked when his godson said nothing for several moments.

"I'll be alright," Harry assured him, rubbing his scar with a bemused expression. "It's strange, I know Voldemort's furious—I could see that in the background, the entire time I was speaking with the haltia. But I still can't feel a thing in my scar."

"It must have deemed you worthy of protection from Voldemort as well, Harry," Remus said softly, helping young man to sit up. "That was awfully dangerous, you know," Remus informed him, hoping to keep from scolding too much after the awful experience the Boy-Who-Lived had just been through, but unable to let the event go without saying something.

"Not really," Harry assured him, stretching now that he was in a sitting position. Remus couldn't help but argue the moment the words left Harry's lips.

"Yes, really. If you'd said merely one word wrong you could have been destroyed, along with the rest of Europe, and depending on the power of that haltia, perhaps even a large portion of the world." Sirius merely rolled his eyes at what he considered to be Remus's theatrics while Harry smirked.

"Nah, it wouldn't have tried to hurt me. It actually had the nerve to feel bad for me," He stated, voice slightly incredulous. "It saw my history somehow, I think. Anyways, it knew I was speaking the truth about not bringing it here, after I said it, and somehow it realized that I was dragged into the war and visions and all without really having a choice. It compared my being forced into the visions and war with it's being forced into this world against it's will, and actually empathized with me."

"Well, you've managed once again, through sheer luck, to mess with Voldemort's plans Harry. Well done," Sirius stated, slapping his godson lightly on the back. "Do you want to rest a bit before we continue training?" He asked, clearly concerned about Harry's health, in spite of the fact that the young man looked fairly well considering his experience.

"I don't think I need any more training, or practicing, guys," Harry told them, his eyes still focused somewhere slightly far away. "I think that haltia took my requests to the extreme. Besides, it's not enough anymore to just mess with each of Voldemort's plans and then give him time to come up with new ones. It's time to take him out for good."

"What!" Remus hissed, horrified. His reaction was covered by Sirius.

"When?" Sirius asked, eyes gleaming in anticipation of seeing what would happen.

"Tonight," Harry answered, his voice firmly decided. "He's at his weakest right now, even after that ritual didn't go his way, from bringing the haltia into the world. Also, he's aware that his plans messing up had something to do with me. He'll be coming after us worse than ever. We've got to move now."

Remus was afraid he'd say that. Well, there went all the careful planning and training of the last several years. They'd have to throw some sort of shoddy plan together tonight.


End file.
